Many modern devices rely on an operating system from one supplier and hardware from one or multiple other suppliers. Further, the device may include additional programs or applications from third suppliers.
On the devices, the operating system includes application programming interfaces (APIs) that govern the operating system or application control of the hardware (e.g., display, touch screen, audio output, network connection, digital image sensor, etc.). These APIs provide universal instruction criteria for performing functions on the hardware.
Current camera APIs may include high level criteria such as an instruction for acquiring an image and an instruction for firing a flash. Additional low level functionality is not present in the API and thus, the applications have limited control over the digital image sensor. It would be advantageous to provide an API with low level functionality, but that is compatible with a larger number of independent hardware configurations.